We’ve got spirit, yes we do! School spirit t-shirt blanket

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School supplies are popping up on store shelves everywhere; back-to-school night is quickly approaching, and college game day is merely weeks away. Show off your school spirit this year with an awesome, personalized blanket. A few weeks ago, I posted this article about preparing kids for college now. Many of you fell in love with the BSU blanket from the post and wanted to know more.

My amazing aunt happened to make this one. Can you buy them? Yes. Several Etsy shops carry them for up to $450. Yikes! You know we love a good DIY project around here and you will be ecstatic to know that not only can you MAKE your own school spirit t-shirt blanket for much cheaper, but it is incredibly EASY as well!

My aunt made a special quilt for her son, using all of his old high school sports jerseys and t-shirts. What an amazing gift! Any high school, college, or professional sports fan would love to snuggle up on game day with this blanket.

I especially like the frayed edges on this blanket, making it more unique than others.

All you need for this project are: 20-30 old school t-shirts, 2 1/2 yards of fleece, thread, and a sewing machine.

Ideally, you want a logo on each square of your blanket. This means you’ll probably need 20-30 shirts. Kids sizes work great. I found all of these at local thrift stores for around $2 each. Ask friends and family for their old t-shirts as well.

If you don’t want a logo on each square, no problem. You’ll need less shirts going that route. Another option is to find a t-shirt printer to print some sayings, graphics, or numbers on some of your plain squares.

When you have your t-shirts, start cutting them into 12.5″ x 12.5″ blocks. That extra half inch on each side will be used to make those cool frayed edges.

Make sure the logo is at the center of each block.

Each block should measure 12.5″ by 12.5″.

After all of your t-shirt blocks are finished, next cut out corresponding fleece blocks to match up with them. Same dimensions: 12.5″ x 12.5″. The fleece will be the back of your quilt.

The beauty of using fleece as backing is that it doesn’t require a middle batting layer. This quilt is simply two layers: t-shirt and fleece. And believe me, it is plenty warm.

When you’ve matched up a t-shirt front and a fleece back, next sew a big X in the quilt block by sewing a straight line from one corner of the block to the opposite corner (diagonally). This is my type of sewing! I can totally do straight lines!

Above is a view of the back, and below is a view of the front after the X is sewn.

Once you’ve got all of your blocks ready, it’s time to arrange them to your liking. You’ll want to lay them all out to get a birds-eye-view of how your blanket will look. My blanket is 5 blocks wide by 6 blocks long.

Now you can start sewing each block together, with the blocks back to back (again, straight line sewing…yipee!). Sew your seam 1/2″ from the edge so that a half an inch remains.

When laid out, your edges will pop up, like so.

Does that make sense?

From there, you sew your blocks into strips, and then sew the strips together to form your square or rectangular blanket.

To create the frayed edges, take your scissors and snip the raw edges into about half inch segments.

It should look something like this.

To complete the blanket with frayed edges on the perimeter, stitch yet another straight line around the edges. Then clip the edges for that frayed look the whole way around.

The end product…Go Broncos!

This blanket is incredibly durable and has become our go-to picnic, camping, and game day blanket. Because it’s made of t-shirts, it is so easy to wash. Just toss it in the washer and you’re good.

About Nicolette

Is a freelance writer with a Bachelors degree in English from Utah State University. She is a full-time mom of four and loves the outdoors, being active, reading, writing, and observing the world from a unique perspective. You can follow her on Instagram at @nicmckinlay.

Comments

Thank you sooooo much for this post. I was eyeing that blanket in your last post and am so glad you followed it up with a tutorial. I’m rounding up my Notre Dame shirts to give my husband a special gift for Christmas. Go IRISH!

My husband has been saving all his PSu shirts since he graduated -eons ago!! I bought a sewing machine 2 months ago and he said “great, you can make my t-shirt quilt” I thought “Ummm I dont quilt”!! However I can do this – awesome!!

Thank you so much for sharing this tutorial! I have MANY sports shirts I have saved from my sons, with intentions of making them a blanket from them. I just didn’t know the best approach! I am so very HAPPY you took the time to make this post! You made my day! (And to think I almost donated a bunch of our BSU shirts!) 🙂

I’ve always loved how the t-shirt blankets turn out! My sister has been making them for about 5 years now. Besides her boys team/school shirts, she has also taken her their baby clothes and pieced together a couple of toddler blankets for the future grandkids. Another favorite was the one that she made from all of the t-shirts that they’ve acquired during vacations. It holds great memories and is a good way to recycle those crazy travel mementos that would have just sat in storage. They make great gifts for graduations, baby showers, and so on.

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